Bloomsday Perennial: T-shirts in pristine condition and races meticulously recorded, Mike Tobey is ready for 50

Mike Tobey recalls a time when a half-mile walk left him winded, pulse racing. Inspired by the 1973 book “You Can Do It” by William Proxmire, he got into shape.

“I read the book, and it inspired me to start exercising,” said the Bloomsday Perennial. “I eventually started jogging.”

Tobey got into shape just in time for the first Bloomsday race in 1977. A Spokane native, he was working in Salt Lake City before he got the chance to move back to the area in 1975. He worked for Union Pacific first as a telegraph operator and then as a yard master before he retired after 24 years.

Tobey said he saw posters for the first Bloomsday that promised the chance to “run with the stars,” including race founder Don Kardong, Frank Shorter and other Olympians.

“It was exciting,” he said. “I was apprehensive because I had never participated in sports in my life. I had never run a race. I was afraid I would make a fool of myself.”

He had a strong showing that first year.

“By that time, I was in pretty good shape,” he said. “It was just fun. I enjoyed it, I really did.”

He posted his fastest time in the 1978 race, 58 minutes , 44 seconds. As the years went by, he would sometimes run with his wife, Sharon, and two children. His wife missed the first race because she had given birth only three weeks prior.

“There were some years when she was faster than me,” he said.

Tobey experimented with running marathons and half-marathons, but gave it up.

“I used to train for it,” he said. “It messed up my Bloomsday training, so I gave up on that idea.”

It became important for Tobey to participate in Bloomsday every year, eventually earning him the distinction of a Perennial, though he disliked the jostling crowds at the start.

“I felt obligated to keep going,” he said. “I didn’t mind the actual race. I always dreaded the start.”

Tobey keeps meticulous records of his races. He includes his finish times and sometimes notes who he ran with and notable events that happened during each race. He wrote down a knee injury, a couple of occasions when he dealt with calf cramps and the 1987 race when he stumbled across an ambulance in the middle of the road. He also made note of how much he weighed each year at race time to see how his weight impacted his finish time.

“There were times when I weighed more than I should,” he said.

Over the years, Tobey became more of a slow , steady runner. He became so slow that he got kicked off his Bloomsday corporate cup team while he was working for Spokane Transit Authority because they wanted to have a shot at winning, he said.

He counts himself lucky that he never had a problem being available on the first Sunday of every May for 49 years.

“I had to trade shifts with somebody once because I was supposed to work, but other than that I’ve been really lucky,” he said.

At 81, Tobey still trains for Bloomsday, but his running days are behind him.

“I limit myself to walking,” he said. “In recent years, I would get injured running.”

These last few years, Tobey has been doing Bloomsday virtually on the Columbia Plateau State Park Trail.

“It’s a nice, flat course,” he said. “I’ve got it all measured.”

For the 50th race, however, Tobey plans to be in downtown Spokane, jostling his way through the starting -line crowd along with everyone else.

“I’m going to do the actual race instead of virtual,” he said. “My goal, right from the early days, was to do it for 50 years.”

Once the 50th race is under his belt, Tobey has no plans to stop. He said his new goal will be to just keep going, one year at a time, as long as he’s healthy enough to do so. After all, he has a finisher T-shirt collection to maintain.

“Some of them I’ve never worn,” he said. “I wanted to keep them nice and new.”